In this latest Mac Faraday Mystery from best-selling mystery author Lauren Carr, readers will embark on a rollercoaster adventure with old friends (including the Lovers in Crime team of Prosecutor Joshua Thornton and Homicide Detective Cameron Gates), but also meet new ones as Mac Faraday’s daughter Jessica Faraday and Joshua Thornton’s son Murphy Thornton join the team in the race to get the love birds to the altar!

With three days left to the year, Deep Creek Lake is hopping with holiday vacationers and wedding guests pouring into the Spencer Inn for Mac Faraday and Archie Monday’s huge wedding ceremony which is being touted as the social event of the year.

But droopy flowers and guests who failed to RSVP are the least of Mac’s and Archie’s problems when a professional hit squad hits Spencer Manor to send the groom, Joshua Thornton, Archie’s mother, and Gnarly running for their lives.

With time running out to the big day, Mac Faraday and Spencer’s small police force have to sort through the clues to figure out not only who has been targeted for assassination, but also who is determined to stop everything … FOREVER!

Meet the author:

Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday Mysteries, which takes place in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Open Season for Murder is the tenth installment in the Mac Faraday Mystery series.

In addition to her series set on Deep Creek Lake, Lauren Carr has also written the Lovers in Crime Mysteries, which features prosecutor Joshua Thornton with homicide detective Cameron Gates, who were introduced in Shades of Murder, the third book in the Mac Faraday Mysteries. They also make an appearance in The Lady Who Cried Murder.

Three Days to Forever introduced Lauren Carr’s latest series detectives, Murphy Thornton and Jessica Faraday in the Thorny Rose Mysteries. Look for Kill and Run, the first installment in this series, to be

​released

September 1, 2015.

The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. Visit Acorn Book Services’ website for more information.

Lauren is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.

She lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.

Guest Post

Okay, Readers, Let’s Work Those Grey Cells!

By Lauren Carr

If you ask any author, they will tell you that they love
feedback from readers. Admittedly, constructive advice from readers is helpful
in the writing of future books.

Granted, not all advice offered by readers is a good fit.
For example, after reading It’s Murder,
My Son, a reader approached me at a book event to suggest that since Mac
Faraday is so wealthy, “Why doesn’t he pay someone to train Gnarly?” Now, if I
was to follow her advice and make Gnarly a well behaved dog, I’d lose half of
my reading audience!

Sometimes, due to our human condition, we fail to realize
that the very thing we love about something goes hand in hand with what we may perceive as a flaw.

Marriage counselors have been noting this for years. How
many times does a woman fall in love with a man because he is hard working and
successful? Then, after the wedding, she is annoyed because he works all the
time—failing to realize that he is successful (which she loves) because he
works all the time (which she hates).

You can’t have it both ways.

Such is the case with my best-selling murder mysteries. Reviewers
and readers rave about their fast-pace, twists, turns, unexpected clues, and
assortment of unique characters who come to life on the pages. Hard core
mystery fans are thrilled by the complexity of my mysteries. Rarely are they
able to figure it all out. They can figure out some of it, but not everything.
There’s always a twist that will take them by surprise.

But then—once in a while, a reader, after raving about all
that will say, “The only complaint that I have is that there are too many
characters …” Each book contains a cast of characters in the front.

Like the advice from the reader who suggested that Mac
Faraday hire a dog trainer for Gnarly, my response is, “Thank you for the
advice, but no.”

I spent most of my career writing humor, while devouring
murder mysteries. I only dreamed of writing whodunits. In my head, I believed
that you had to be a really brilliant writer in order to write a murder mystery
that would challenge whodunit fans to, as Hercule Poirot used to say, “work
those gray cells.”

That brilliant writer was not me—or so I thought.

Then, I became dissatisfied with mystery after mystery.
Most, if not all, of the time, I would figure out who had done it. Many times,
I would have the mystery figured out by a quarter of the way through the book.
Often, the books were just too simple.

In many cases, I found that there were so few characters,
aka suspects, that a flip of the coin would give me a fifty percent chance of
being right. Unfortunately, I had the killer pegged over ninety percent of the
time.

Unable to find murder mysteries to read that offered a real
challenge, I decided to start writing them myself—writing the type of mysteries
that I like to read—with lots of twists, turns, unexpected clues, and an
assortment of unique characters who come to life. My challenge to the reader to
solve the mystery before I provide the solution gives readers a thrill, which
makes them continue turning the pages to the end.

These readers who complain about too many characters, while
loving everything else about my books, fail to realize that murder mysteries
are like puzzles. Each chapter, each scene, each interaction between the
characters is a piece of puzzle. When everything is pieced together correctly,
you end up with the solution to the crime.

Fewer characters mean fewer suspects, which makes for less
of a challenge to the reader. Less of a challenge makes for less fun in trying
to figure out who did it. When it comes to a murder mystery, there is no thrill
if you remove the challenge.

A true puzzle enthusiast gets no joy out of putting together
a one hundred piece puzzle in one hour. There’s no fun in that.

Like the wife who complains that her successful husband
works too much—my readers can’t have it both ways. When they pick up a Lauren
Carr mystery, they must prepare themselves to work their brain’s gray cells. (When they need help, they will always find
the Cast of Characters in the front.)

My Review:I am not a fan of terrorism or spy novels so this one was a bit hard for me to read. I did enjoy a lot of the book that was not dealing with terrorism and spies. I really enjoyed reading about the wedding and the craziness involved in their wedding, and was thankful I had none of those problems when planning my own wedding. A few things were a little unbelievable in the book, but it was an ok read and I only say that because it turned out to not really be my type of book.

In the book the race is on to get everything in place for the Social event of the of the year. Mac Faraday and Archie Monday's wedding, which is 3 days away. The story takes place mostly in Deep Creek at or around the Famous Spencer Inn and Spencer Manor. Both of which are owned by Mac Faraday. A team of hit men show up to kill Mac, the Brides mother, and their dog Gnarly. I love how Lauren Carr introduces you to the cast at the very front of the book. I kind of skimmed over it at first, but as I got into the book I really liked having it there as a reference when a new character showed up, since I have not read the other books in the series. I like her writing style she does try to keep your attention and to keep turning the pages. She does a great job with details, she tells you just enough to let you picture it without boring you to tears by making the book 3/4 details. I really loved that.

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